“My mother answered, ’Your wife still remains in your house, but she is in great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears both night and day.  No one as yet has got possession of your fine property, and Telemachus still holds your lands undisturbed.  He has to entertain largely, as of course he must, considering his position as a magistrate, {92} and how every one invites him; your father remains at his old place in the country and never goes near the town.  He has no comfortable bed nor bedding; in the winter he sleeps on the floor in front of the fire with the men and goes about all in rags, but in summer, when the warm weather comes on again, he lies out in the vineyard on a bed of vine leaves thrown any how upon the ground.  He grieves continually about your never having come home, and suffers more and more as he grows older.  As for my own end it was in this wise:  heaven did not take me swiftly and painlessly in my own house, nor was I attacked by any illness such as those that generally wear people out and kill them, but my longing to know what you were doing and the force of my affection for you—­this it was that was the death of me.’ {93}

“Then I tried to find some way of embracing my poor mother’s ghost.  Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom, and being touched to the quick I said to her, ’Mother, why do you not stay still when I would embrace you?  If we could throw our arms around one another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows even in the house of Hades; does Proserpine want to lay a still further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom only?’

“‘My son,’ she answered, ’most ill-fated of all mankind, it is not Proserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when they are dead.  The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together; these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream.  Now, however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note all these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.’

“Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of the wives and daughters of all the most famous men.  They gathered in crowds about the blood, and I considered how I might question them severally.  In the end I deemed that it would be best to draw the keen blade that hung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from all drinking the blood at once.  So they came up one after the other, and each one as I questioned her told me her race and lineage.